There seems to be no end to the foolish, sometimes mean-spirited and irrational comments people have made about the horrific Sandy Hook incident.

Foremost among such comments is the truism that guns don't kill, people kill people. Bullets and bombs don't kill people either. As with guns, they are the effect, not the cause.

The most delusional comment was made by the conspiracy theorist James H. Fetzer: "The Sandy Hook massacre appears to have been a spy-op intended to strike fear in the hearts of Americans ... by agents of Israel."

The most unseemly comments, of course, were made by the chief executive officer of the NRA, Wayne Lapierre. His assertions include: "Look, I get it: A bunch of kids died, and it's really sad. It's not the end of the world. It's 2013, and we're still talking about some shooting that happened last year. It's not as if talking about them will bring them back. Let's just get over it."

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What do you expect of a man whose primary concern is the bottom line. The only certainty of placing a cop in all of the more than 100,000 schools in the United States -- as he proposed -- would be a windfall for gun dealers, makers, trainers and the National Rifle Association.

Those who are outraged by the Westchester, New York, Journal News' publishing online maps revealing the names and addresses of licensed gun owners have argued, on the one hand, that the release of that information is "a map for criminals to use to find homes to rob that have no guns in them" and, on the other hand, they argue that this information "would expose law enforcement officials ... once you allow the public to see where they live, that puts them in harm's way."

In other words, it doesn't matter because you are endangered whether you own a gun or not.

Nolan Finley, the editorial page editor of The Detroit News recently stated, "There are few physical things I love more than guns. But I would've melted down every rifle, shotgun and pistol I own had I thought it would spare the life of even one of those precious children massacred in Connecticut last week." If Nolan Finley's argument was rational, melting down those guns could in the future save a life, perhaps more than one.

Regarding the Journal News' release of names and addresses, the syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts wrote that he would feel vulnerable if his name and address had appeared on one of the Journal News' maps. His feelings are the result of his having had his personal information made available on the website of a white supremacist group. "Threatened" is probably a better term to use in describing his feelings. It was the intent of the white supremacists to threaten and intimidate him and his family, if not to carry out the threatened assassination. That was not the intent of the Journal News. The publication of that information probably relieved a lot of folks of their fear of guns, their fear of not knowing who among them owned a cache of weapons, the fear of their children being exposed to guns in a neighbor's home, and their fear of succumbing to their fears by buying a gun themselves.